


Oh, to be alone with you.

by ForReasonsUnknown (orphan_account)



Series: Of Spitfires & Love Songs. [10]
Category: Dunkirk (2017)
Genre: Angst, Emotions, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Sort Of, Swearing, but there is a happy ending!, like big time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 06:39:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13161354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/ForReasonsUnknown
Summary: Farrier just shakes his head, bitterness overcoming him as he replies:Survival makes monsters of us all, Collins.





	Oh, to be alone with you.

**Author's Note:**

> Based upon the song 'To Be Alone' By Hozier. Once again, Kudos is much appreciated, and let me know what you thought of this down in the comments. Also, a message to mobile users, I'm writing on my laptop now, rather than my phone, so layout may look a bit strange. If this really bothers you, let me know and I'll see what I can do about it! 
> 
> Enjoy x

_Honey, when you kill the lights, and kiss my eyes,_

_I feel like a person for a moment of my life._

The RAF shapes Farrier into something he does not recognise, something towards which his mother holds a subtle fear, something that makes his father puff out his chest in pride, something that, for the years leading up to the war, remains anonymous to him, unidentifiable. He realises what it is during his first flight into the war. They’re flying high above occupied territory, and he feels nothing as he shoots down German fighters with an efficiency that gains him a promotion and the respect of his superiors. Up in the sky, his edges become blurred, his very being seeming to meld with that of his plane, becoming one, single weapon. And _there_ it is, _that’s_ what he is now.

_A weapon._

_Not a person._

It seems wrong to him, he feels almost cheated to have had his humanity seemingly stripped from him; everyone else seems to love it. The new recruits cheer whenever he returns to base, feverishly asking how many he downed, scribbling down any tips he gives them furiously, as though they’ll be of any use. His superiors applaud him, and throw rewards at him at as much as possible, allowing him to bend the rules where he chooses to keep him sweet, keep his ruthless efficiency on side. His mother hates it, tells him as much when he visits home one stormy weekend, her words unfiltered and harsh, her eyes wet yet voice strong.

She doesn’t recognise her son, she says, she pleads to know where he’s gone.

 _He’s still here_ , Farrier wants to scream, _I’m still human, I’m not what they made me_. But he can’t even convince himself, so he doesn’t even try to convince her, and instead remains silent. Forcing smiles and assurances. Offering hollow thanks to his father’s never-ending enthusiasm and pride.

Farrier gets blind drunk that night, in the privacy of his childhood bedroom, and cries into the dark silence of the night.

The numbness becomes agonising, and soon takes over as his resting emotion, his reaction to everything that occurs around him. He’s numb the first time he shoots down a German bomber, despite the jubilant congratulations blaring into his ears over the radio. He’s numb when he watches a childhood friend shot from the sky, his terrified voice echoing in Farrier’s head as he plummeted towards the ground. He’s numb even as his engine fails over the English Channel, bailing out of his plane once he’s nearing the shore with indifference, landing on the sand with a sharp grunt, and making the long walk to the nearest town with little thought put into it.

As he trudges across the sand, it occurs to him that he could just run away, here and now. He’d been separated from the rest of his group following an ambush that had left two of them dead, and the rest of them dispersing and the wreckage of his plane would inevitably be found at some point.

But he doesn’t, whether out of loyalty or fear, he doesn’t know, but he returns to base with a tight smile and a _just doing my job_ attitude to those that congratulate him, using the excuse of exertion to retire to his private quarters. Farrier doesn’t get drunk that night, because the moment he closes the door, he’s already falling apart, the numbness subsiding, and a painful amount of guilt and loneliness crashing through it, knocking him flat. He’s lucky that his neighbours are all eating in the mess.

After all, if any of them heard what he screamed into his pillow, body shaking in both anger and sadness, he’d surely get discharged.

He sees Collins for the first time out at the barracks, the blonde has all of his belongings in his arms, and a stupid grin on his face, blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth. There’s a man in front of him, screaming, getting right up into his face about something too trivial for Farrier to care about. And he’s struck, for a moment, by utter lack of interest Collins possesses, firing back at the man with retorts and snark that has Farrier nearly smiling.

When the confrontation shifts towards becoming violent again, Farrier decides to intervene, pulling rank, and calling the small group to attention. Collins snaps to attention, and Farrier takes a moment to look him up and down, the snark and amusement on his face replaced with a blankness that makes him uneasy.

“What’s going on here, then?” Farrier asks, focusing the question at the man who’d formerly been screaming into the blonde’s face, but his eyes burning into Collins’.

“We’re kicking him out, that’s what,” The man replies gruffly, anger making his voice shake, Collins seems to find this amusing, a smile pulling slightly at his lip, Farrier very pointedly lets it slide. “None of the other lads want him in their bunkrooms either, can’t be dealing with a disrespectful sod like this, so you’ll have to find a place for him, sir.” The man adds, and Farrier nods before dismissing everyone but Collins, who looks a prick standing out on the tarmac in a vest and shorts, boots likely hidden in one of the boxes at his feet, a sheet thrown around his shoulders like an old woman’s shawl. Collins, however, doesn’t seem to give a shit.

“What’re you going to with me then, _sir?_ ” Collins asks, and Farrier has to look away from him, steadying himself for a moment. Collins is smirking when he looks back at him, and Farrier’s gut twists. But the numbness is gone, instead replaced by an adrenaline akin to what he used to feel whenever he took off into the sky, whenever he’d survived by the skin of his teeth, before they’d turned him into a weapon.

“You’ll come and stay with me, there’s a spare bunk in my room. That should keep you out of trouble.” Collins seems surprised by this, but makes no comment, and murmurs a quiet ‘thanks’ when Farrier stacks two boxes of Collins’ belongings, and shows him the way to his room.

Farrier doesn’t sleep that first night, still riding high on the adrenaline from earlier, and the unexplainable feeling in his gut that Collins’ sleeping form on the other side of the room elicits. For the first time that month, he doesn’t cry into the darkness either, the numbness having subsided, instead replaced by a state of calm akin to sleep, but not quite.

Collins soon becomes a regular feature of his daily life, eating with him in the mess, sharing cigarettes on the roof of one of the hangars on an evening off, the blonde telling him his life story with little fear, conveying to him emotions that Farrier is no longer able to. Farrier spends time he’d have previously spent dwelling on all he’d lost pulling Collins out of fights, chastising the blonde over whiskey in their room as he wraps bandages around his bleeding knuckles, putting in good words for him with their superiors whenever he gets into more serious trouble.

None of his superiors make a fuss when Farrier asks for Collins to be assigned to him. They seem pleased about it, as though Farrier’s mediating, neutral guidance may calm him down, may reduce his bursts of irrationality.

If he has any effect however, he seems to only _enhance_ these episodes.

In the air, he still is this weapon, this _unfeeling machine_ , and Collins _hates_ it. He tells him so one evening, both of their inhibitions lowered through a few too many glasses of Collins’ Scotch. It scares him, he says. To see Farrier before their flight, giving Collins a small smile, acting just as he expects his friend to, but when they’re in the air, he doesn’t recognise the voice that speaks to him. It should hurt, he knows it should. But there’s no anger behind it, no accusation like there had been with his mother. Collins even sounds concerned, asks if there’s anything he can do to help, if something happened to him out there before they started flying together. Farrier just shakes his head, bitterness overcoming him as he replies:

_Survival makes monsters of us all, Collins._

Nothing changes, they fly together, Collins watches Farrier out of the corner of his eye with concern, does his best to provoke emotion from him to no avail. Tries to understand why they respond to events in such different ways.

Farrier watches friends die and feels nothing.

Collins witnesses the same thing, and becomes overcome by a raw humanity.

It’s this that draws Farrier to him, their polar opposites reeling one another to each other, the pair balancing precariously on the line that separates what is acceptable and what is not. And in a moment of rediscovered humanity – sparked by Collins’ drunken musings on his mother – they fly over that line, crashing and burning together.

But _God_ , Farrier’s never felt so alive.

Because Collins clambers into his lap, taking control where he wants it, teasing and provoking Farrier until the brunette pushes back, tearing Collins’ clothes from his body, and leaving bites across his chest that bruise immediately. They’re as quiet as can be, and Farrier makes a silent promise to take Collins somewhere, someday where they can be as loud as they want. Where Farrier won’t have to swallow Collins’ moans and whimpers with harsh kisses, and Farrier won’t have to reduce his own to low growls.

Collins’ face goes blank as Farrier fucks him, and it’s a contrast to their prior roughness. The passion is still there, the fire between them raging ever stronger, but Farrier takes the time to be gentle, to treat the blonde with a tenderness he didn’t know he possessed, and makes Collins arch and squirm, voice broken and incoherent, Farrier’s name on his lips as he comes. Farrier isn’t far behind, and Collins is silent and unmoving, before a great smile pulls at his face, and Farrier realises what that feeling had been, all those weeks ago when they’d first met. It’s back now, as he pulls Collins up off the floor and into his bunk, the blonde sliding easily into his arms.

“Why me?” Collins asks, fingers idly tracing one of the tattoos that litter Farrier’s arms, voice shy and closed, something Farrier’s never heard before. “There’s plenty of other pretty boys on base who’d jump at the chance to get in your bed. So why did you choose me?”

“Because when I’m with you I’m a person,” he blurts without meaning to, regret and embarrassment flooding him almost immediately. Collins tilts hid head so their eyes are locked, and there’s a confusion there, a curiosity. “They look at me and all they see is what I can do. I’m just a fucking weapon to them,” The anger makes his voice shake, but he embraces it. Because he can feel, raw and real and it would make sense for his anger to be directed at Collins. Who’s made him weak, who’s exposed him for what he is. But he can’t, because Collins is a homecoming, a return to the son his mother loved and his father grew bored of, the man who mourned his friends and fought with an undying passion.

The only people that he can be angry at are the ones that did this to him, who stripped his personality down to the bone who mangled his personality and left his numb, unable to feel anything other than a crippling loneliness in the dead of night. “You make me feel human, Collins. As pathetic as it may sound-” Collins shushes him with a soft kiss, that makes Farrier’s chest ache, the blonde pulling Farrier on top of him, breaking away to breathe, fingers massaging into the brunette’s scalp.

“It’s not pathetic, Farrier,” Collins says, voice strong and immovable. “It’s not pathetic.” He repeats, kissing Farrier once again, and the brunette laughs, fully and freely, and Collins laughs with him, the pair of them laced together under their itchy blanket.

And Farrier knows that come the morning, he’ll climb into his Spitfire, and the numbness will return, and he’ll kill with indifference.

But here, in this moment alone with Collins, he’s a person again, just for a moment.

And it’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up much longer than expected, kind of proud about that.
> 
> Also ashamed.


End file.
